It followed up a Daily Mail article on Monday by Liz Jones, Inside the X Factory, in which she wrote about head stylist Laury Smith having help from four unpaid interns

Jones wrote: "These young people work seven days a week, from 8am until gone 10pm. No wonder the interns... are exhausted and in tears."

So Graduate Fog contacted Our Assembly, the outfit that handles PR for the X Factor style team. It confirmed that four "regular" interns work for the team and, occasionally, more were used on show days.

They are not paid, but receive travel expenses and free meals. They are generally hired for three-month stints.

Graduate Fog lists the substantial money generated by the programme before asking why X Factor can't stump up the minimum wage – £6.08 an hour – for their hard-working interns?

It then decided to discover whether Simon Cowell was aware of unpaid interns working on his show and sent his office a letter. It has not had a reply thus far.

Graduate Fog says it is "seriously unimpressed" with the use of unpaid interns. It adds:

"Claiming that the use of unpaid interns is the industry standard is no excuse – nor is emphasising what valuable experience internships can offer young people. ...

We believe that unpaid internships exploit those who do them and exclude those who can't afford to do them. They are getting longer and longer, with less chance of a job at the end of them.

Increasingly, it is a myth that unpaid internships lead to paid jobs – now they are replacing paid jobs. Unpaid work is not a solution to youth unemployment – it is a big part of the problem."

Update:Graduate Fog has just reported that Talkback Thames, the producers of X Factor, does not engage unpaid interns itself. It describes the style team's intern use as an "isolated incident".